Tin ears

It's starting to feel a bit springlike here - snowdrops out, buds on the trees etc. And as nature springs to life, so Nothing To See Here cranks up for another season. The latest entry on The Band Room by Jane from Maraid Design is particularly lovely. A small corrugated iron building built in the 1920s for the Farndale Silver Band, it has been rejuvenated as a modern music venue with an impressive list of select international visitors. More on The Band Room website.

Coach Station Reunion

One of the perks of working at Newspaper Club is seeing the lovely papers that people print each week. This one, entitled Preston Bus Station is a delight. Put together by the superb Preston is my Paris, it's a homage to Preston Bus Station, transport hub and all round fading architectural icon.

A postcard from Orkney

We've been to Orkney, a fantastic trip. One of the many highlights was The Italian Chapel on Lamb Holm, made by Italian prisoners of war while they built the Churchill Barriers (causeways that link some of Orkney's small islands) nearby. It's an ordinary Nissen hut, intricately painted and decorated with the most basic materials to become an immaculate little church.

Camp it up

While in Comrie, we also visited Cultybraggan Camp, the most complete remaining POW camp in the UK (according to this source). It was built in 1939 and covers 8 acres in a remote spot of Perthshire countryside, containing over 100 Nissen huts in varying states of repair.

The whole site has been bought by Comrie Development Trust, who are in the process of turning it into a community resource. It's a large site and the area towards the back is now hired out to businesses and used for allotments. The enormous firing range that sits behind them is kind of incongruous, but it's great to see the land being put to good use.

Quite a few of the huts have been renewed and repaired ready for tenants.

Other are left exactly as they were when the MoD left - mattresses on the floor, forgotten furniture, tattered posters and remnants of military life.

They do scrub up nicely. This hut (close to a ginormous nuclear bunker, just in case) is now someone's office.

The site is open from morning until dusk so anyone can go in and have a look around. I'm still reading up on it all hence the lack of background in this post, but there's some good info on Secret Scotland. More photos on Flickr.

A little piece of Glasgow

Tinyments are tiny, perfect models of Glasgow tenements, made by Finch and Fouracre. Made from nickel silver, they're supplied flat, ready to be clicked into place.

They also make red and blonde sandstone tenements kits which require a bit more assembly. You can get them from the Finch and Fouracre shop or from their Etsy store. My only complaint is that there's only one variety. It would be great to see them in different shapes and sizes, just like the real ones, so you could build a wee Glasgow street.

"No one was ever dry"

Off Kilter, Jonathan Meades' new series on BBC Four is a three-parter about Scottish architecture. Joy of joys. The first programme tonight was all about Aberdeen. I don't think I've seen an hour-long programme about Aberdeen before, never mind a good one. It sometimes feel like the further north everything gets, the quicker it's glossed over, and generally there's a lack of focus. Much as I love Coast, I wish they would slow down a bit.

So it was great to see a programme that really captured the feel of a place and went slowly enough for Meades to fit in a few trademark rambles. It was a pleasure to see Aberdeen in all its glory too. The shack above, from Footdee featured heavily, quite rightly. I can't wait to see where else he ends up.

What great oaks from little acorns grow

Regular readers will know that Morecambe's Jug of Tea stand has long turned to dust, but still it lives on in the nation's heart. So well done to Trevira for looking in detail at this busy postcard of Morecambe's Marineland and spotting a little tiny Jug of Tea van. From this a seaside icon was born. The Jug of Tea - R.I.P. Flickr pool catalogued the kiosk in its final resting place near the Arena Funfair before it was demolished in the name of progress. When we were in Morecambe in February it wasn't any clearer what would take its place. Any word on what's going to replace it?

Gone but not forgotten

The Rubble Club is a support group for bereaved architects. From the website:

The Rubble Club is an organisation to remember buildings demolished in their architect’s lifetime. The Club has three key ground rules:

Firstly the building’s architect must be alive and not party to its destruction

secondly the building must be built with the intention of permanence (exhibitions, shops and interiors are not eligible)

thirdly it must be deliberately destroyed or radically altered, it can’t simply burn down.

It was suggested by Isi Metzstein of Gillespie Kidd and Coia who has seen a few of his buildings disappear, including the partially demolished Notre Dame College of Education in Bearden. There's already a lively debate on most articles, from supporters who feel that more could be done to save the building in question, and detractors who point out the fatal flaw in the architect's plan. For Notre Dame it's the flat roofs, based on Moroccan architecture, transplanted to the soggy west of Scotland.

The building, designed by Oliver Hill, is just extraordinary. It looks great from every angle, inside and out. The way it's designed to curve along the bay gives everything a beautiful line. The artwork, by Eric Gill and Marion Dorn adds a bit of colour and the rest is mostly left to breathe.

The rooms, which had been gutted years ago, are modern and really comfortable. It's nice that they have some references to the original, like the seahorse motif in the shower.

Being Midland superfans, we bought the book (The Midland Hotel: Morecambe's White Hope) and sat comparing old and new. After befriending the manager, she gave us a tour of the Eric Gill room which has a huge hand-carved map of the north west of England on one wall. This used to be on the other wall of this room and was moved lock, stock and barrel. Yikes.

The building was closed for 12 years, went through a series of different owners and frankly it's a miracle that any of this has survived. It's a complete triumph. More photos in this Flickr set and in The Midland Hotel Flickr pool. They've got an offer on at the moment, two nights for the price of one so get yourself down (or up) there for a seaside treat.

Cherish the Past, Adorn the Present, Construct for the Future

I was going to say something about Patrick McGoohan's passing, but all I can think about is Portmeirion. We went there in 2006 on our first Great British Holiday and it's stayed with me ever since. It looks great on screen, but is so much better in real life. I think, because The Prisoner is quite cool (I mean, cool in tone, sort of chilly) it hides some of the charm of Portmeirion. That's what hit me, all these wonderful little funny details. The door marked Fire Engine (above) is only about 3 feet high.

I loved it all, but my favourite thing was the inscription on the statue of Hercules, which features quite heavily in the series. The beautifully turned out plaque says "To the summer of 1959, in honour of its splendour". Then underneath, in the same ornate script "1971 Highly commended" and underneath that, "1975, excelled even 1959". Wonderful.

Anyway, there is a nice Patrick McGoohan tribute from Robin Llywelyn, managing director of Portmeirion and Clough Williams-Ellis's grandson:

There is no doubt that the Prisoner as we know it would not have been possible without the location. Clough admired and respected McGoohan for the way his series portrayed Portmeirion, especially from the air. However Clough was never quite sure what it was all supposed to mean. Typically of Clough, he never asked McGoohan for a location fee, and was very surprised to find it was an international sensation as soon as it came out.

Related: a new CBeebies programme called Captain Adorable was filmed there recently. I can't find any trace of this online, perhaps because the one episode I saw looked bloody awful, despite featuring master toddler-whisperer Justin Fletcher as a caped (but rubbish) superhero. It was shot in the style of Lazytown, really bright and dynamic, and Portmeirion looked amazing. Secondly: Philip at English Buildings posted an interesting thing yesterday, about some Williams-Ellis buildings in Cornwell, Oxfordshire. Must add that to the list.

Any old iron

Tin tabernacles is a lovely photo gallery of corrugated iron buildings. Mostly churches with some other odds and ends. In the late 1800s these structures were mass-produced and easily shipped to rapidly expanding settlements. Despite the hostile British climate quite a few survive, usually brightly-painted and lovingly cared for. If "wriggly tin" is your bag there's more at another Tin tabernacles site and the daddy of them all, the Corrugated Iron Club.

On our seaside jaunts I've come to love the first glimpse of a new pier. Long, short, sparkly, tatty, classy, tacky. They all serve the same function but are so different. Southport and Great Yarmouth are bold and brassy.

It's a pleasure to flick through Derelict London by Paul Talling, the book of the website. I thought it might be a bit depressing but it turns out to be the opposite. These forlorn spaces, so easily overlooked in real life often have unexpected stories behind them. For all the ones overcome by the wrecker's ball there are other like Soho's Marshall Street Baths (above) being reused and regenerated. Recommended reading.

Palaces for the people

There's a rather sad entry about the Excalibur Estate in Catford by Doctor Boogie on Nothing To See Here. The 187 prefabs there (the largest estate of its kind left in Europe) have survived for 60 years but are now under serious threat as they don't meet Decent Homes Standard and would cost £8.4 million to refurbish. Clearly the numbers don't add up, but sometimes it's not just about money.

Cumbernauld: Love it or loathe it

Good and bad news for Cumbernauld this week. The bad first - it's up for its third Carbuncle. These are the raspberries given out by Architecture Scotland for the worst buildings, with a special "Plook on a Plinth" category for worst town. The idea is to "provoke debate about the poor quality of development in many of Scotland’s towns and cities" but it still seems a bit mean.

Six degrees of separation

I'm pleased to have contributed some photos of Centre Point and Space House to a feature on Colonel Richard Seifert at Archinect. They approached me directly to use the photos not mentioning that Owen Hatherley who writes one of my very favourite blogs - Sit Down Man, You're a Bloody Tragedy wrote the piece. There's a six degrees of separation thing going on here. Also, while the photos might look planned and well executed I had no idea that "Space House" was a Richard Seifert building. I wandered past it after interesting2007 and thought "Ooh, that looks a bit like Centre Point", took some photos, Bob's your uncle. I imagine all great architectural photographers work this way.

You go all the way to being brutal

I spent Sunday morning admiring Antony Gormley's handiwork in and around the Hayward Gallery. Event Horizon puts lots of little Gormleys (as opposed to one big one) across the London skyline. Walking over Waterloo Bridge you catch sight of the first rooftop figure and as soon as you see one you can't help looking around to find them all. I like the way it's proper art, but it's beautiful and playful at the same time. Not for anyone traumatised by Dr Who's Blink although they look pretty placid by comparison.

Inside the gallery there's a variety of other works in case you think he just spends all his time making effigies of himself. Blind Light, a walk-in foggy box is completely disorienting but in a very pleasant way. Like standing in a cloud. Back outside I enjoyed all the Brutalism. Lovely, lovely concrete. Following the debates in this week's BBC Magazine about Britain's most unpopular buildings, I wondered if people still hate the ones on the South Bank or is it okay if they've got art in them? The Hayward Gallery is particularly lovely - proper brutal with all its jutting angles and hard edges. For the rest it's a hard one to call. Of the 4 buildings up for debate I've only seen one - Owen Luder's Get Carter car park in Gateshead. I think it's fab and having parked in it, can attest it does exactly what it's supposed to. It always seems like the same half-arsed debate though - some outraged local who wants to knock it down vs someone from the Twentieth Century Society who doesn't have to look at it every day but reckons it's very important. Having sought out a few carbuncles lately the reality is more complicated, with every building having different pros and cons depending on what and where it is. It would be good to get beyond the mudslinging and talk about it properly 'cause I can't help feeling this isn't helping architecture any. I'm wondering if tomorrow's building will be King of the Carbuncles, Cumbernauld town centre. We went there last week and can see why it provokes strong opinions. Visit report coming soon.

Seaside style

Quick plug for the new, appropriately streamlined website for The Midland Hotel in Morecambe, as seen on last night's Coast (although I missed it being in that London). Kate who introduced the Knitted Village to Nothing To See Here designed the website for the Friends of the Midland Hotel - they've done a tremendous amount to make sure that the restoration gets the place back to its wonderful Art Deco glory. It only costs £5 per year to support this very good cause. I'm joining up now.

If I were France and you were Germany, what an alliance that would be

As predicted I had a ball in New York. What a great place. The icing on the cake was spending 3 days at a conference in the United Nations Headquarters. I got the impression most of the delegates took the surroundings for granted, while I was obsessing over the typography, the chairs and the general ephemera of international relations, 1950s-style.

In the conference room there were two rows of chairs in different colours - one row for delegates, the second for alternates. The desks had little microphones, an earpiece and a space for a nameplate if I'd been a country there on diplomatic business. The nameplates were sitting out at the back in a huge pile, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe with the Holy See sitting out on top.

Outside the conference room there were these phone boxes, and the best thing was they usually had two or three people in national dress in them, making an urgent call. It was like an old film. And everything else in the building was beautiful. The assembly rooms are spectacular, in a Cold War, Dr Strangelove kind of way. It's a combination of modernist aesthetics with the most beautiful colours and fantastic detail - classic typography, muted lighting and great seating.

It was hard to do it all justice without a better camera but here's the United Nations Flickr set. There are much better picures in The UN Building by Ben Murphy, some of which are also on his website. The book also has the background on how it was built - the committee of international architects, Le Corbusier and Oscar Niemeyer among them must have tested diplomatic protocol to its limits before the place was even built.